A quick presentation on Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) for startups.

1. Objectives & Key Results (aka OKRs) for Startups

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What are OKRs?
A framework to set goals and strategy over a specific time.

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Objectives

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1. Should be clear
2. Are what you hope to accomplish at end of period
3. Should foster discussion and focus on what company
should be doing
4. 50% should come from “bottom up”
Objectives

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Gmail was born from OKRs!

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Key Results

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1. Quantitative results that can be measured
2. They are not key results unless they are a number!
3. Feel uncomfortable
4. Graded on a scale of 0 to 1.0
5. .6 to .7 is the target
Key Results

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Give me an example!

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Increase Active Companies
Increase Monthly Active Companies 300%
Create, define and track a company “health” score
Outbound campaign(s) to 5,000 companies
Dummy Example of Visible OKRs

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Benefits of OKRs

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1. Disciplines thinking, major goals will surface
2. Create autonomy & accountability
3. Communicate accurately
4. Focuses efforts, keeps organization in step with each other
5. Established indicators for measuring progress
Benefits

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Used by companies of all sizes!
Benefits
or or

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OKRS are not

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1. A performance or evaluation tool
2. Set in stone
3. Easy to achieve
4. Private or solo’ed off
They are not:

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Setting OKRs

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Typically there are OKRs for company, teams and individuals.

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OKRs can be shared across company, teams and individuals.

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They should be created in 1 on 1s through a “negotiation”

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Company Objectives
Team Objectives
Individual Objectives
1 on 1’s -> negotiate, develop key
results & monitor progress.
50% of company objectives come
from bottom up
Company Wide: OKRs
communicated & graded

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They need to be transparent across the organization

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Have them live in a Google site, doc, etc.

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Grading OKRs

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1. Grade OKRs with the entire company*, transparent as can be
2. Assign each key results a score of 0 to 1.0
3. Average Key Results to get Objective Score
*while company is still small enough

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Increase Active Companies 0.73
Increase Monthly Active Companies 300% 0.5
Create, define and track a company “health” score 1.0
Outbound campaign(s) to 5,000 companies 0.7
Example Grading
.7 generally means objective was a success!

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Monitor OKRs throughout the objective period. Discuss in 1 on 1s.

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Now what?

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OKRs are data!!!!

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They help calibrate and find what we’ve learned

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Iterate & build!

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Great Resources Resources
Original Blogpost: http://visible.vc/blog/okrs-for-startups/
https://medium.com/startup-tools/okrs-5afdc298bc28
http://sparkcapital.tumblr.com/post/104760637181/adapting-okrs-for-your-startup
http://hunterwalk.com/2013/03/01/manager-okrs-maker-okrs-how-id-change-googles-goal-setting-
process/
http://firstround.com/review/How-to-Make-OKRs-Actually-Work-at-Your-Startup/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJB83EZtAjc

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